


Stereo Hearts

by halfeatenmoon



Category: Cobra Starship, Fall Out Boy, Gym Class Heroes, The Academy Is...
Genre: Born Without/Lacking Soulmate-Identifying Mark, M/M, Soulmate-Identifying Mark Is Damaged, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates Share Dreams, Wings Only Visible to Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-01
Updated: 2017-06-01
Packaged: 2018-11-07 20:03:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11066139
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/halfeatenmoon/pseuds/halfeatenmoon
Summary: People always told Travis that when you met your soulmate, you'd just know who it was. There are lots of people who seem special to Travis, though. How was he to know who was the right one, and who already had a soulmate waiting for them?





	Stereo Hearts

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ViperVentura](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ViperVentura/gifts).



People tell you that you'll know when you've found your soulmate. It's different for everyone - some people get marks on their skin, some see differently, some share dreams with someone or even hear their thoughts, or feel their pain. Since it's different for everyone, there's any number of ways you can recognize your soulmate. Travis sometimes wonders if he's missed it. There are a lot of people in his life that he's loved, and no sign that any of them are his one and only soulmate.

With some of the people he's close to, he does see something. It's something in their shadows, like their shadows are more than just a shadow. They blur at the edges, or they're bigger or smaller than they're meant to be, or he sees them move in ways they shouldn't, just out of the corner of his eye. He saw it with Matt, that first time they met in gym class. They'd been talking at the back of the line for what felt like ages, but when the gym teacher finally interrupted them and told Matt it was his turn to climb the rope net, Travis couldn't stop watching him. There was something about his shadow right thing, a blurring around his shoulders, like it was about to take off and leave Matt behind.

It can't mean all that much, though, because after that Travis started seeing it with plenty of people. Not just anyone, usually people he was close to, but enough. Enough people that he's pretty sure it can't mean that these people are his soulmates. How could he have so many?

Gabe's shadow always seems to keep moving for a split second after Gabe stops. Like it has to get an extra little shimmy in. Travis keeps catching sight of it when they're recording Snakes On A Plane, and it makes him smile, gives him an extra push to sing harder, perform harder, really make something of this collaboration. They're all a pretty special crew, actually - William and Maja have shadows that dance, too. It's Gabe's that keeps catching his eye, though - it's sinuous, slithery, and maybe it's just that they're singing a ridiculous song about snakes that makes it catch his eye, but he can't stop watching.

It's the strongest Travis has been able to see shadow shapes in a while, so much so that he starts to wonder. The day they finish recording for the song, they all go out for drinks, which turns into dancing, the four of them shimmying their way through a club with glee. When Gabe slides off the dance floor to sit down for a number, Travis goes with him, sliding down next to him in a booth. It's then that he finally blurts out "Hey man, you got a soulmate?"

Gabe laughed out loud. "I'm bound to the fucking Cobra, man."

"The what?"

Gabe rolled up his sleeve. Curled on his forearm, up towards the elbow, was an image of a hissing cobra about to strike.

Travis frowned. "Cool ink, I guess?"

"No, man, it's my soulmark.

"Holy shit." Travis peered closer. He'd seen a few people with marks that matched their soulmate's, but they were usually abstract blotches, and dull colors rather than bright. This was the most elaborate soulmark he'd ever seen. "How did you get that? Did you always have it? Did you meet your soulmate and you both came out with perfectly detailed snake tattoos?"

"I haven't met any of them, yet." Gabe threw back a shot and then hunched over the table on his elbows, looking seriously into Travis' eyes. "You really want to know how I got it?"

"Really."

"I was in the desert when I had a vision. A cobra came to me, from the future, to tell me the world was gonna end."

"Uh huh. It hasn't ended yet."

"It's on the way out, the space cobra said. And my job is to make sure we spend our last years on Earth sending it off with a bitching party. Then I woke up with this mark and set off to look for anyone else who had been chosen by the Cobra."

There was a long silence, or what passed for silence in a club. Travie had forgotten about the beat and the crowd while Gabe was talking, but in the space between their words the sound came rushing back.

"That's a great story, but it sounds a hell of a lot like you got a tattoo while you were wasted."

"You know ink." Gabe gestured at, well, all of him. "Ever had a tatt that healed up right away? No scabbing, no pain?"

Travie searched for an explanation for that and found nothing. "Well, shit."

"Exactly. But I'll find my cobra soulmates and we'll throw the longest, greatest party in history to see the world out." He stood up and held out his hand.

"I don't have the mark, you know," Travis said, as he put his hand in Gabe's. "I don't even know if I have a soulmate."

"One day you'll know," Gabe replied, "And it doesn't matter if you're not my soulmate. My job is to help everyone party."

* * *

 

In the weeks that followed, Travis wasn’t sure he believed a word Gabe had said. But a year later when they met up on the tour circuit, Gabe had gathered an entire band to help him take his doomsday party to the world, a whole band of Cobra Starship. They stood up in front of the crowd every day, all five of them with cobras on their bodies, from the dorky looking cobra on Ryland’s ankle to the ridiculous one on Nate’s neck to the longest cobra mark of them all, coiling its way all the way up Victoria’s leg. By day they made the world party, and by night they collapsed in a heap in their bus together. If the world was ending, they were going down laughing, and in each other’s arms.

  
Travis would have been jealous, but by that tour he’d fallen into a different kind of trouble. It was almost a complete Snakes on a Plane reunion, and with Gabe having his hands full with four new soulmates, there was nothing to distract Travis from his troublesome crush on William Beckett.

* * *

  
They're touring a summer festival together, and it just makes sense to spend time together. A little bit of Snakes on a Plane reunion. It starts on day zero, before they've even played a show, when a group of them stay up drinking late into the night, stretched out in the grass in front of the tour buses as the late summer sun makes their shadows stretch out in front of them, so long that it seems like they stretch on forever, like their shadows reach across the whole world. When the sun goes down, Someone starts a small fire in the middle of the circle even though it's not cold. With the flickering of the fire, everyone's shadow shifts and dances for once.

William likes to touch even when he's sober, but a few beers in and he's positively cuddly. The rest of the world seems to go quiet where William leans against Travie's side, with Travie's arm curled protectively around him. Eventually it comes time to turn in and he has to shake William awake.

"I'm awake already," William grumbles, looking up at Travis with sleepy eyes. The rest of the group is disbanding, the fire dying down. William kisses Travie on the cheek before he gets stiffly to his feet. He smiles down at him and gives a little wave before he turns and walks back towards his bus.

The fire is low, but still dancing. Travie watches William walk away and sees that in the dancing light of the fire, William's shadow is calm, solid, still.

* * *

Their paths don't cross every night of the tour, but it's close. Sometimes they just bump into each other going from one place to another, and William will say "hey there," and lean back against the side of a bus, practically inviting Travie to lean over him, put his hands either side of William and hold him there. The third time they meet like that Travie finally does it, leaning over William in the hot summer sun, watching his own shadow cover William's body completely. William grins and cups the back of Travie's neck and says "finally".

William gets Travie on stage with him during one set. One mic each, they both sing, and Travie really did get up there intending to just sing, but despite the heat William pulls him close and Travie can't help putting his hand on William's hip, pulling William in close to him.

"You're gonna be okay, right?" Matt asks him, one afternoon after their set.

"What do you mean? Nothing's wrong, here."

"With William." Matt punches his shoulder.

"What's with William?"

"Don't give me that, there's something with William."

"It's not... come on, man, we kissed like two times in the back lots when there was nobody else around, it's hardly a thing."

Matt snorted. "Every time I see you together you're all over each other. It's like you can't stop touching him. I think you like him a lot, man."

Travie swallowed. "Yeah, I guess. I don't know. It's probably just a tour thing. And how do you know whether it's going to be something more than that?"

Matt scratched his chin. "Yeah, you've got me there," he said, eventually. "I don't know how you're supposed to tell either. Things feel different on tour, like shit's just going to go on forever and you don't know if you'll feel the same when you pack up and go home. I don't know, I guess if you saw some kind of sign that you were soulmates, that would make it feel better? Then maybe you'd know."

"What's a soulmate sign supposed to look like, though? I have no fucking idea. I've liked... I've loved a lot of people, and never seen signs that they were my soulmate."

"I know. And sometimes they do, and it's someone else." Matt sighed.

Matt's hand is rough and warm where Travie covers it with his own.  
Matt shrugged. "I'm just... I want you to be happy, man."

People said that all the time. It was normal when your friends were maybe sorta kinda in love. Of course you want them to be happy. With Matt it meant something different, though. Matt had seen Travie drift into five different relationships and drift out again, wondering how he'd know if anyone was the one. It didn't destroy him, but it left him a little lost, a little adrift. he wanted the sign that everyone else seemed to have, the sign that this person was the one. And Matt had just had one of those terrible breakups, the kind where everything had seemed to be going perfectly until his girlfriend found her soulmate. She barely seemed to notice him when she stopped by to pick up her things.

When Matt said he wanted Travie to be happy, it meant 'take the plunge', and it also meant 'don't get hurt'.

Travie turned his hand palm up, laced Matt's fingers with his and squeezed tight. Matt's calluses were different to when they were in high school, rougher and harder, but his grip still felt familiar, the same hand Travie had known since before he wanted a band.

He stood up, still holding Matt's hand a moment longer.

"I'll be careful," he says, giving it another squeeze before he lets go.

As he turns to leave the bus he can see Matt's shadow out of the corner of his eye again, flickering and stretching, the suggestion of something bigger than he can even imagine. It fits, he thinks, as he lopes across the grass to find William. Matt hasn't found a soulmate, but his body must be about ninety percent heart. It makes sense the way his shadow doesn't seem like it can contain him.

* * *

 

It was ridiculous for Travie to try to fit into William's bunk but he does it anyway. They while away the evening making out in the frantic, cramped way that's all you can get in the bunk of a tour bus, rubbing against each other while still in their clothes. Tour hookups are never the most satisfying - you're always in quarters too small to get comfortable or you're trying to fuck in public with an ear out for someone coming around the corner to take you by surprise. But after being so close to William for so many days, watching him and touching him every chance he gets, then cramped groping in a bus bunk is more than enough.

Travis wakes still in the bunk on the Academy bus. He's cramped as hell, and one of his legs is hanging over the edge because the space isn’t even long enough for him to sleep in, but William is asleep on his chest and it’s the most beautiful thing he can imagine. In the dim light he can see William smiling, his eyes closed but flickering as he chased a distant dream. Travie must have laid there for half an hour watching William’s face before his eyes finally flickered open and stayed there.

“Hey,” William said, sleepily.

“Hey yourself.”

“That was the best,” William said, dreamily, his hand drifting up to cup Travie’s jaw. “The best ever. We flew, Travie.”

Travie laughed and petted his hair. “You still a little high, Bill?”

“No, I mean in our dream. We flew close to the sun and we didn’t fall.”

“William, you’re sweet, but I was dreaming about having a warm bath, and probably being in a never-ending hallway. And maybe there were Pokemon.” Travie’s laugh died when he saw how crushed William looked. “You really thought we were dreaming together, didn’t you?”

“Someone’s in my dreams every night. We dream together. We talk to each other. Always the same. And… and I always knew they loved me…”

Travie felt his heart sinking, just as sure as he could see it on William’s face. “I’m sorry. Whoever you’re dreaming with, it’s not me.”

William’s hands were clenched into fists in the fabric of Travie’s shirt. “But I wanted it to be you.”

 

* * *

 

Travie signs his heart out on stage that day, and spends the rest of his time lying in the shade of the bus with a cooler and all the beer he can find. He's swigging away with determination when Matt finds him, already three sheets to the wind. Matt doesn't say anything, just sits down behind him and pulls Travie back into a hug, Travie's back to his chest, and lets Travie ramble sadly where Matt can't see his face.

Matt's a good friend. The best, honestly. It's fucked that someone would leave him just because they're not soulmates.

"It's fucked that William wouldn't want to be with you just because you're not soulmates," Matt adds. He's opened his own beer now, but he's barely sipping it, his hands occupied with petting Travie's hair.

Travie takes a determined swig from his own drink. "He didn't."

"He didn't. He wanted to try." Travie sighed. "He's so sweet, Matt. He said maybe we could make it work but he... he has a soulmate already. They talk to each other in their dreams."

"They might never meet."

"Yeah, but right now I can walk away. If I kept going with him, I don't think I could."

Matt was quiet for so long that Travie sat up and shifted around, so he could see him.

"What's with the silent treatment, dude? Do you think I fucked up?" He felt a little sick at the thought, that maybe this was a chance after and and he'd blown it.

"No, I think you do what you have to do," Matt said, slowly. "It's just... I've been thinking, you know? Everyone's supposed to have a soulmate, and maybe most people do, but I don't know. I still haven't seen or felt anything that makes me think there's someone out there waiting just for me. Have you?"

Travie thinks of every time he sees a shadow dance when it should stay still. Not everyone's moves, but some of them do. The ones he winds up wanting to be close to, he knows that already. The people that seem special.

But they can't all be his soulmates. So many of them already have soulmates of their own.

"No, I haven't."

"I don't think I want a soulmate any more, though," Matt said, thoughtfully. "What happened with my ex hurt, but I was happy with her. I don't think I was wrong, I'd do it again. I don't need a sign that we'll be together forever, I just want to be with someone. Maybe you don't get to wait for a sign. Maybe you just have to take the leap."

"Maybe." Travie toyed with the label on his beer bottle. "I couldn't with William, though. I can't. It's sweet that he wants to try, but I saw the look on his face when he sleeps, and the things he said when he woke up. When he finds his soulmate, nothing's going to keep them apart. I can't stay around for that and just end up falling in deeper."

"Yeah, you're right." Matt shuffled over and leaned against Travie's shoulder. "Maybe there aren't soulmates for us and we just have to take the leap with someone. But watch where you jump."

* * *

There were two particularly great things about recording a song with Patrick Stump. One was that when they were singing, Travis sometimes glanced over at Patrick and could see his shadow pulsing ever so slightly in time with the beat. The other was that he was a goddamn genius, even if that meant he sometimes drove Travis a bit nuts.

“It is _ten pm_ ,” Travis said, when Patrick suggested taking another run at a lyric. “We are way past singing time. This should be pizza time. Or go home and play with your puppy time. Can we go home to your puppy.”

“Huh. Yeah, I guess it is late.” Patrick had been trying to play something back from the recording booth and looked up, blinking behind his glasses.

They were the only two left in the studio; the rest of the crew had gone home for the day, but Patrick was relentless in his quest to get Travis to harmonise perfectly with him. The quest was flattering and more than a little sweet, but it was getting a bit wearing.

“We’re so close though,” Patrick grumbled, as he started switching things off. He looked back at the recording booth. “Are you sure we couldn’t…”

Travis abruptly grabbed Patrick around the middle and hoisted him into the air. This was a third great thing about recording with Patrick; he was really easy, and fun, to pick up. Usually he grumbled about it but also let Travis hug him afterwards. It was the best.

Travis’ plan for the rest of the night had been to put Patrick down and hug him as usual, then take him out and force him to stop talking about music for long enough to eat something. But his train of thought was derailed when he tried to throw Patrick over his shoulder, Patrick’s shirt rode up and Travis’ hand fell on a twisted, raised scar on Patrick’s side. He froze, wanting to look but not wanting to look, either. It wasn’t until Patrick thumped his back that Travis remembered to put him down.

“Sorry.”

“It’s okay.” Patrick straightened his glasses, and casually, almost imperceptibly, smoothed down the fabric over his side. “It’s not like it’s a huge secret.”

“How many people have ever even seen you with your shirt off?”

Patrick smirked. “I might if more people asked.”

Travis could only stare for a moment, and then laughed. “Oh, so that’s how it is.”

“Well, not exactly. But like I said, it’s not a secret. And you can ask.”

“It’s just a scar, though, right? You had a weird accident or surgery or something.”

Patrick didn’t say anything in response. He just reached down and took hold of the hem of his shirt, and looked up at Travis with his eyebrows raised. Travis nodded, his mouth dry, not even sure how it could be this big a deal. Patrick gently lifted the hem of his shirt to show, not just a scar, but mass of black marks – something that unmistakably used to be a name – rendered utterly illegible by a mass of scar tissue.

“Shit.”

“Yeah,” Patrick said.

“How do you…”

“I don’t know if I want to talk about it any more than that right now,” Patrick rubbed his face, looking suddenly as if the tiredness from all their work had hit him all at once. But Travis had to try.

“I don’t have a mark at all. I don’t have anything. People say you’ll know when you meet someone but I never have. How do you…”

Patrick held up a hand to stop him, and Travis barrelled right past it and hugged him.

“Okay, okay,” Patrick said, his voice muffled in Travis’ chest. “But if you want to talk more you have to buy me a drink.”

* * *

“I don’t meant to keep flirting,” Patrick said, apologetically, as Travis sat down with their drinks.

“Right, you’re just hot by accident, too, huh?”

It was too much fun watching Patrick get flustered. “Shut up.”

“See, there you go. Accidentally hot.”

“I have a boyfriend,” Patrick glared at him.

“Oh. I mean, cool.” Travis reached around for some way to change the subject. It wasn’t like he was gone on Patrick or anything, but they’d been working together for a week and he was cute and bossy and fun. He already thought maybe being able to see Patrick’s shadow thrum with the beat meant _something_ , and he couldn’t help starting to hope that if Patrick’s soulmark was damaged, and Travis had nobody, then maybe…

“If I didn’t, you’d be fun,” Patrick said, switching to a smirk in a moment. “But yeah. Sorry. Me and Andy…”

“Really? You keep that on the DL.”

“It’s not a secret. People just don’t ask.”

“Like the scar.”

“Like the scar. It was an accident, by the way. When I was about five. The name wasn’t even all that clear, but I think I used to be able to feel something when I touched it. Like, I could feel _something_ like a bond already. And then the accident, and… nothing.”

“Shit.”

“It’s really not as bad as you think,” Patrick said, almost disapproving. “I wasn’t that attached to a stranger whose emotions I could sometimes psychically sense when I was five.”

“Yeah, but…” Travis groped for words, for the thing he didn’t really talk about with anyone but Matt. And even then, barely with Matt. “It’s not just that, it’s the… going through life not knowing how you’ll ever know if someone’s right for you.”

Patrick gave him a hard look. “People tell you you’ll know when you’ve met your soulmate, right?”

“Yeah. But I’ve loved a lot of people, and I never saw any kind of sign.”

“And I was never gonna see a sign. I _chose_ Andy. And that was when I knew we were going to stay together.”

“But how could you know? If you can’t feel the bond.”

“He has a soulmark too, you know,” Patrick said. “Different to mine. Clearly not a name. There was someone else out there for him.”

“See, I love people, but they know they have soulmates, and then they leave me and how do you know he won’t?”

“Because,” Patrick said, calmly, “He went to a tattoo shop, signed a consent form the size of my arm, and got his mark inked over. It’s gone.”

Travis could only stare. Patrick kicked him gently under the table.

“It sucks, going through life not knowing,” Patrick said, echoing what Travis has said before. “But you find the right person anyway, and you choose them, and then they choose you.”

* * *

Travis woke Matt up early on a stupid Saturday morning, then took him out for brunch and then a ridiculous day at a theme park, riding a roller coaster three times in a row like they used to when they were kids. They were walking home when Travis offered to take Matt out for dinner, too, and Matt said only if he paid because Travis had been so fuckin weird about paying for everything today, and that was when Travis had grabbed his hand.

Matt looked at him, and raised an eyebrow, but he laced his fingers with Travis’ and squeezed back.

“So you wanna date, huh?”

“If you’ll have me. You are still single, right?”

“ _Now_ you check,” Matt chuckled. “Yes, I am, as a matter of fact. Needed a break from the heartbreak.”

The words were already rolling around in Travis’ head trying to turn into lyrics, and he tried to firmly put them away for later. “I can be a break from that, I hope.”

“You know what it’s like, at least.” They walked a little further in silence. Travis could almost hear Matt thinking. “Is this… I know it’s not a pity thing, exactly, but is this just that we don’t have soulmates and you don’t have any sign we’ll be soulmates and you just don’t wanna get dumped?”

He said it casually, but there was a strain in his voice. Travis had heard it before, in all the late nights when one of them had been dumped or were dating someone they were afraid were leave, or when they both just admitted that they were afraid that maybe for them, there was nobody. It usually broke Travis’ heart when Matt sounded like that, but this time, for once, it made it soar.

“When I met you, back when we were kids, I didn’t feel sparks and fireworks and know that we were soulmates or anything,” Travis began. “But I saw you and I knew I wanted to hang out with you, and do amazing things together. That’s the most sure I’ve ever been about anything.”

Matt’s mouth quirked up at one side. “I did always think you were cute.”

“Dude! Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Because! We both thought we had other soulmates out there waiting. When we dated other people and it sucked, I thought, fuck, at least Travie gets it. That’s what helped me get through it. If we dated and _then_ you found a soulmate and left me, what would we do then?”

“Yeah, but c’mon.” Travis stopped them, stepped in front of Matt, still holding his hand. “We’ve been together this long. Let’s just choose this. What kind of stranger am I gonna choose over you?”

Matt had been trying to hold himself back, trying to look cool, but at that, he couldn’t help breaking into a grin. “Yeah, okay nerd,” he said, pulling him closer. “I choose you, too.”

They kissed on the street in the evening summer light, a first time that felt like they should have done it a decade ago. When Travis opened his eyes Matt was still there, smiling at him. And behind him, against a wall, he could see Matt’s shadow growing, unfurling, in the silhouette of an enormous pair of wings.

 

 


End file.
